(West Australian)

It was a British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin in 1935, who commented on the press: "What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, but power without responsibility - the perogative of the harlot throughout the ages..." (Marshal et al 1996 P184). The Australian press, in 1975, was certainly hostile to the Whitlam Government, and, as research is indicating, the above statement can be considered a reasonable observation of the Australian press, perhaps not in 1935, but, certainly in 1975. The treatment of, and possible influence on voter reaction to the Whitlam Government by the Australian press, is the ultimate for this research. This study, however, examined `letters to the editor' in order to sample the national response to the `Dismissal'. Needless to say, the dismissal of the Whitlam Government, on 11 November 1975, and the subsequent Federal election on 13 December, has been describe as the most important political event in Australian history (Molony 1988 PP361-363). Without doubt it affected all sectors of Australian society due to the 'unorthodox' constitutional method of the removal. No other Australian government has been removed from office in this way, where the Senate, under threats from Malcolm Fraser, the leader of the Opposition, deferred the Government's Supply Bill, which, had the effect of freezing the Budget for 1975-76. Given such a parliamentary `deadlock' the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, acted on 11 November 1975 and withdrew the commission of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister; appointed Malcolm Fraser as 'caretaker' Prime Minister, and finally ordered a new election for the 13 December 1975; even though, under what was then believed to be the Westminster `convention', Whitlam advised against such action (Archer et al 1976 P10 and Epstein 1976 P27).

The actions of the Senate, the Governor-General, and Whitlam brought into focus political issues that had never been involved in a Federal election before: the powers of the Australian Constitution, unwritten parliamentary conventions, and the power of the various political institutions are only a few. Unlike previous studies on the dismissal, this one examined the issues that writers to the editor discussed in the Sydney metropolitian area. Further, the study identified the `type' or `class' of person who wrote these letters. One particular aim of such a study is to provide a more intensive analysis, provide some insight, along with identifying some contributing factors, as to why the Whitlam Government was not returned to office.

In order to suggest class participation in the public discussion through the letters to the editor, every writer has been identified by their occupation or place of residence. Thus, an analysis has been developed based upon either identification. In the calculations to discover which regions of Sydney participated, location along with its voting pattern has been determined in order to suggest the `type of person' who discussed the political issues of `The Dismissal'. Furthermore, an analysis of whether the writers were `typical' of the location's voting pattern has likewise been attempted.

(West Australian)

The Four Issues

The four issue sections chosen have been selected from the ANOP (National Times 1975 P14) opinion polls (November and December 1975). This polling group was the major one that was accepted as legitimate by both the Australian Labor Party and the Coalition parties. The poll indicates that there were four main issues for the election. These were Rules and Conventions, Leadership, Stable Government, and Economic Management . On average 82 percent of people surveyed in the ANOP poll indicated one of these as the key issue of the election.

ANOP, in contrast to the other poll operators in 1975, used:

... an unclustered and intricately stratified

design, selecting respondents who are enrolled

voters from a sample of the electorates and the

electoral subdivisions within electorates.

(Beed 1977 P224).

ANOP and other opinion pollsters in Australia have had a good reliability record. This stems in part from the existence of compulsory voting. Compulsory voting means that at least 95 percent of the community participates in elections. The so-called `lugging' of support for parties performing well in campaigns does not have an impact on turnout and, hence, the election result (Ibid. P253).

In a further poll conducted by the political science department, at the University of Melbourne, interviewed 300 people including 70 who were identified as swinging voters (Holmes 1976 PP47-53). Like the ANOP poll, four main issues, the constitution, leadership, government management, and the economy, emerged that convinced the voter which party to support. A common response was: "I feel sorry for Labor - but they made a mess of it" (Beed 1977 P253).

In order to triangulate the rational for the study structural arrangement, one need look no further than the post 1975 election report of the NSW state council of the Liberal Party. It argued that:

The electoral strategies pursued by the

opposing camps were in stark contrast. The coalition

offered a government of integrity and competence

with an emphasis on economic management... The Labor

Party, imprisoned by the sacking issue, employed the

language of the kindergarten, crying `Shame on you,

Fraser, shame', but as the campaign progressed,

attempted to promote the Hayden budget as the answer

to our economic woes (Lloyd et al 1976 P255).

It would appear from the above indicators, that the study structure of four issue sections is a reliable and sound foundation. Having accepted this premise, textual analysis may begin in order to organise the resource material into the thesis structure.

The key strategy within textual analysis is the application of `language system' models to communication systems. All meaning producing activities are gathered under the one conceptional framework: that of `signification' or the making of meaning. `Semiotics', a key conponent of textual analysis, analyses signification by reducing all communication practices to their most basic unit: `the sign'. A sign can be a photograph, a word, an expresion, or a gestrue, any form which refers to meaning. Semiotics offers a less evaluative account which focuses on the production of meanings through the text and on the social, rather than the aesthetic, dimensions of meaning.

A further benefit of semiotics is that it can deal comfortably with the combination of signifying practices which occur in mass media: headlines, leading stories, photos, other articles, and layout of the newspaper. Semiotics shows how the making of meaning is a social practice, and how contingent this practice is upon the dynamic relation between the reader and the text, between the text and its context, and between the three - reader, text, context - and the culture itself.

There are many forms and objectives to the practice of textual analysis. Underlying the analyses are a wide range of assumptions about the degree to which texts determine the readings that their audiences produce, and about the degree to which textual meanings are determined by the context of their consumption. Among the variables considered are the degree to which texts are understood through the audience's experience, and the individual text's invocation, and the conversely, the degree to which individual texts enjoy relative autonomy. The processes which produce meaning are seen to be both highly contingent, that is, subject to a wide range of intervening social, historical and cultural factors - and can be contradictory.

It is these contradictions that is sometimes difficult to grasp. Texts, it is argued, are polysemic and thus produce different meanings for different audiences. Meanwhile, they, also have limits which determine and constrain the meanings they are likely to produce. Audiences, however, are thought of as being `inscribed into' the texts they read, encouraged to occupy an already designated reading position from which the text will most easily make its sense.

While textual analysis has had to relinquish any ambition to reveal the meaning through its consideration of media texts, it still insists that one cannot just wheel in anything. Most agree that the text does have the power to limit the range of uses to which it is likely to be put. Exactly how much power, however, or how one might define the limits, is more difficult to decide. The balance of power between text and reader seems to vary from text to text, from reading context to reading context, from audience member to audience member, and over time. It has been emphasised that reading texts is a matter of negotiation, and that this negotiation is likely to be influenced by many factors outside the text.

Although there are still grey areas, few would deny that texts need to be read carefully, contingently, and provisionally. Media text analysis cannot do what literary analysis has done: deliver elitist pronouncements on `the meaning' of its selected texts; media text analysis has to be aware that all readings are interested, all readings have an objective in mind, and all readings have to be offered as possibilities rather than conclusions.

Forward asked the question: "Is paper X more favourable to the Whitlam Government than paper Y?" (Forward 1976 P137). In order to answer this question he developed ten possible ways to answer it. Here, our focus is on letters to the editor. Our question: "Are the letters of issue X more favourable to Whitlam than issue Y's"? By modifying his methodology we could apply 9 possible scenarios. Number 9 has been chosen in order to decide whether letter writers were hostile or supportive to Whitlam. The final formula was () the net score of issue X's letters divided by the number of X's letters is greater than the net score of issue Y's letters divided by the number of Y's letters {sPX+sNX/nEX>sPY+sNY/nEY, where nE=nP+nb+nN} (). This is the method for this research. It means that if you pick up any copy of issue X, it is more likely to come out on balance more favourable to Whitlam than a copy of Y. The measure of hostility to Whitlam is the average net score (sE) of a issue.

The location status methodology was modified from the findings that A. A. Congaltion conducted and published in 1969. The study, Status and Prestige in Australia, created a simple listing of 368 locations in Sydney which ranks these locations on a 7 point scale (Congalton 1969 PP136-141). The sampling used was not a resprehensitive one, although precautions were taken to maintain an equal spread. A further step was taken to include a number of people engaged in the real estate industry.

Each suburb was rated by the respondants and was given a ranging from 1 to 7. The instructions had been given to indicate how the locations are rated in the community according to their social status; that is, which suburbs carry a high status, which carry a low status, and which in between. In order to discover the average rating given to each location the median was claculated, and the figures indicated the spread of status rankings among the locations of Sydney (Ibid P6).

A major problem, of course, was newspaper bias. Following the method employed by Forward, out of 3 889 editorial items, 52 percent dealt with Federal governmental issues (). Of these, the study showed that the Age was the only major newspaper that was favourable to the Whitlam Government, while the Australian was rather 'neutral', with the Advertiser, and the Canberra Times next in line. Those that were hostile towards the Whitlam Government were the West Australian and the Melbourne Herald. Following this group were the Sydney Morning Herald, the Courier-Mail, and the Mercury. As these papers are holders of the research material for this paper, Forward's findings are, therefore, important and any conclusions in this paper must be considered in this light. Although no inference can be placed, from Forward's study, on editorial control over 'letters to the editor', it must be remembered that bias may have occurred, thus contaminating these primary sources (Forward 1976 PP7-12).

Another problem was the actual meaning in the interpretation of letters. Although the discussion of textual analysis acknowledges we are looking for signs, one must not ignore the fact that the interpretation offered is the most likely possibility, not the only conclusion.

A more significant problem was the analysis of writer's socioeconomic status. Although a basic analysis has been attempted, most of the writers were not able to be contacted, as their only reference was by name and suburb. These findings, it must be stressed, are only representative of 111 people, while the writings and thoughts of close to three million other people are not included within this paper and, therefore, the findings should not be considered stereotypical of other Sydney locations and residents.

In reviewing previous writings on `The Dismissal', a number of things became evident. Considering it is the major political event in Australian political history, the number of significant works devoted to it, are not equal to the number deserved. There are a number written from 1976 to the early 1980s, but from then on, only a handful new studies have been published with few new insights (). Furthermore, these publications are `traditional' political histories or political science studies, with little reference to the discussion of the public. Therefore, this paper will show how accurate the opinion polls and the election results were, as a representation of the concerns of the public.

(Sydney Morning Herald)

A large number of letters, about 50%, were found to be `insulting' and `simplistic'. These gave little regard for the `appropriate' discussions by other letter writers. Four letters have been selected to represent the four categories and indicate the demographic spread and quality of the discussion. In the first letter, P. R. Fenton () took exception to the Australian historian, Manning Clark, and his concerns about possible violent reaction to the dismissal of the Whitlam Government. Fenton accused him of pursuing:

... the standard Whitlam-communist line of

creating a false or erroneous hypothesis and then

arguing vehemently against it and promoting violence

by raising it as a probability and then piously tut-

tutting it.... (1975 P8).

Fenton continues to point out that change would be no more violent under a conservative government. For the past six years all violence, Fenton argued, had stemmed from and been promoted by the pro-Labor and radical student factions. Conservatives are blamed for the violence because Labor supporters use violence as a political weapon, but violence is not caused by conservatives. Manning Clark, Fenton assures the readers, believes Fraser would have difficulty governing because the intellectuals, the students and the trade unions would not let him. Finally Fenton announces:

A pox on intellectuals, academics and perpetual

students. Let's have some practical men who

acknowledge that a Budget, in both the short and

long term, must be balanced, whether it be

personal, business, State or national (Ibid.).

Ian Ford (), meanwhile, suggests that he understands that Whitlam had every right to be more than a little disgruntled with the treatment that he has received over the past three years. Apparently a lot of people let him down. To begin with:

... the Senate has been obstructionist; the

multinationals were too powerful; employers have

lacked confidence: unions have made excessive wage

demands; the media has been biased; the States have

not surrendered their powers; 'All other comparable

Western countries' have sent him their inflation;

the Public Service has withheld vital information

from him; Aborigines were ungrateful; a finance

broker proved an embarrassment; Caucus reversed some

of his decisions; senior ministers misled him; the

Deputy Prime Minister was untruthful; the Governor-

General actually sacked him; Mr Fraser's car was

even hidden from him (Ford 1975 P6).

Ford concludes that if so many people, and it appears to be everyone in Australia, had wronged him, then he too would have been throwing tantrums! (Ibid.).

Hugh Philp of Macquarie University, following Ford's sarcastic repartee, approves of the slogan adopted by the Australian Liberal Party. It would appear, to Philp, that `I am a Liberal lover' accords well with "... a party which has just procured the prostitution of the Constitution." (1975 P6).

In contrast to the above examples, in a letter to qualify an article that was published earlier in the Sydney Morning Herald, Alastair MacLachlan, senior lecturer in History at The University of Sydney, indicated:

.... the historical anachronism perpetrated by

Sir John that he has decisively intervened in the

political arena and that he has acted in a way that

is bound to be seen as partisan (1975 P6).

Furthermore:

The constitutional 'Ockerism' of Professor Lane

and those who claim that the Governor-General has

merely provided a mechanism for the consultation of

the people, and that the nature of the mechanism is

immaterial, is no proper answer (Ibid.).

MacLachlan continued that constitutional forms of government are vitally concerned with means. It is precisely Sir John's means that are open to criticism, that being: the dismissal of a popularly elected Prime Minister, the installation of a 'caretaker' Prime Minister without the support of Parliament, the failure of the Governor-General to gain the widest possible advice, and all of this under circumstances which can only be regarded as 'highly suspect'. Further, there is no infallible position in the notion that the Crown can do no wrong. Instead, what "... we have witnessed ..., is a palace revolution and palace revolutions are out of place in a parliamentary democracy." (Ibid.).

MacLachlan acknowledges, however, that British precedents are not entirely relevant to an Australian situation, that the Australian Constitution is, after all, a curious and possibly unworkable 'marriage' of Westminster and Washington. But, argues MacLachlan, convention over 75 years had at least preserved the impartiality and inaction of the Governor-General after the British example. By the Governor-General's decisive action and by his narrow legalism, MacLachlan concludes; "Sir John has shattered those conventions which alone make his position tenable under the rules of a modern parliamentary democracy." (Ibid.).

(Newcastle Morning Herald)

Gough Whitlam lost the Federal election on 13 December 1975; yet, in history, he is remembered, indeed almost revered, as a great Australian, possibly more so, than any other Australian Prime Minister: a 'Shining Aberration' as the Australian historian, Geoffrey Bolton, calls him (Bolton 1993 P244). What the writers display is Australia at its worst, and, ironically, Australia at its best.

Australians seem to view failure as heroic: we have the Eureka Stockade, Ned Kelly, and Gallipoli, among others, who are, at first failures, but they have been mythologised as legendary heros. This study was not intended to discover whether Whitlam was a failure, or a legend, and as such does not, but, in a number of letters, emotional responses of martyrdom and `embryonic' mythology are clearly evident. When we survey, today, the Australian ethos, history has judged, if we may borrow a term from Engels, Whitlam a great Australian icon, Kerr has become a twisted, somewhat evil character, while Fraser has become a forgotten figure.

An extremely wide and extensive discussion of issues was made in the three Sydney publications examined in November and December 1975. Table 2 shows the

spread of the discussion (). Some anomalies have arisen, however, due to the findings of this table where the proportion of responses of this study are not even closely duplicated by the same issues which were raised in the ANOP/National Times opinion poll.

Although Queen's Counsels, academics, and others, who presumably knew the 'topic' area well, discussed their differences based upon 'solid' points of argument, as indicated by MacLachlan's letter, a large number of the public, approximately 50 percent, reduced their discussion to name calling and simplistic comments that really had no relationship to the complexity of the constitutional situation. As political studies was not part of the school studies curriculum, regardless of the socioeconomic status of the student, it is not surprising to find that the general public found the political theory debate confusing at best.

It is Connell's arguement in Ruling Class, Ruling Culture that the higher socioeconomic classes benefit in a number of areas in society, due to their economic position (1977 PP170-176). In acknowledging Connell's arguement () and the findings of this study, one may conclude that the political awareness of the higher socioeconomic and the intellectual communities has been developed to a higher level of awareness. This is possibly due to greater access to better education and higher tertiary resources. Consequently, the lower socioeconomic community may have a lower political awareness, possibly due to lower financial and educational resources. Considering Australia is a democracy, which `demands' the involvement of an educated public in the political process (Mill 1993 PP277-298), this can only be seen as a concern and an area for future research and discussion.

Caution, however, must be advised when considering this finding. Only a limited number of publications, that is three, were used as reference sources for this study. Although care has been taken in the collection of primary material, the three papers, the Australian, the Bulletin, and the Sydney Morning Herald, were orientated towards a higher socioeconomic market, while the lower socioeconomic marketed papers, the Sun, the Mirror, and the Daily Telegraph, were not included in this study. As discussed earlier, there was difficulty in obtaining research material from these papers.

Notwithstanding this concern, the study found that the writers came from a wide variety of backgrounds and socioeconomic areas of the Sydney metropolitan area. Table 3 has been divided into three categories representing the low and high socioeconomic, and academic/other specialised groups, to which the writers belong. This table decisively indicates that a substantial proportion of writers came from the higher socioeconomic locations of Sydney (), especially from the conservative northern and eastern electorates of Bennelong, Berowra, Bradfield, North Sydney, and Wentworth. The small academic, and special interest groups of the community, were, likewise, largely over represented. The largest sector of Sydney's population, the lower socioeconomic community (), were, proportionally, absent. Only the Labor Party electorate of Sydney was `heavily' represented by writers. Further study of the socioeconomic demographic support is displayed in Table 4. This indicates that majority support for Whitlam came from the lower socioeconomic locations, although support, likewise, came from a significant sized minority of higher socioeconomic located writers. Fraser gained majority support from the higher socioeconomic located writers. Suprisingly, and conrtary to popularist opinion, Fraser gained majority support from the academic/special interest groups.

This difference, though, is not as explicate in the overall average findings for the study. In Table 5 () it is clearly shown that the averages for the study, especially for the letters that are supportive in their content to the Whitlam Government, resemble the findings of The Bulletin/Morgan Gallup Poll (Table 6) (Bulletin 1975 P18). Again the findings of the study reflects the Federal election results of 1975, which returned 45.5 percent of the vote in New South Wales and only 42.8 percent of the vote nationally for the Labor Party (Mackerras 1976 P42). This study, furthermore, clearly supports the results of the Bulletin/Morgan Gallup Poll (the study was even closer to the election result), that throughout the electoral campaign of 1975, the Labor Party was, on average, behind the Coalition parties.

It must be stressed that, in a number of issues, the

Labor Party had majority support. On 'Rules and

Conventions', for example, the Labor Party had significant support, while further support was given over

'Stable Government'. Nevertheless, when it came to 'Leadership' and 'Economic Management', the Liberal Party had far greater support than anything the Labor Party could achieve.

An accidental finding is the productive method of examining 'letters to the editor'. This study, which is unique, has discovered variations between, what the opinion polls at the time rated the issues, and what was actually discussed by the public in the papers. One question must be asked, however: "Was such a discussion determined by editorial influence?" Considering it has become common lore that the press was bias in their hostility against Whitlam, this is an extremely perniant question. Nevertheless, the study has found an elaborate, accountable, economical, and actuate methodology for predicting electorate behaviour, from a sample, in some cases, numbering similar to many opinion poll operators in 1975.

A number of things are evident from this study. The public discussion was wide, from the rational to the emotional, numerous, and a great majority of writers came from the higher socioeconomic community of Sydney. The issues varied and, in the findings of this study, support for the Labor Party varied as well. Overall, we have seen the complexity of `The Dismissal'. The reaction to it was far more complexe than Manning Clark's observation:

Once again the Australian electorate had

demonstrated the truth that their history had

fashioned them as sound conservatives: in a choice

between the status quo and a mild change, they opted

for a conservative way of life (Clark 1995 P320).

As the study indicates, in reality, it is the contrary. Sydney writers like other Australians had, it seemed, lost their faith in the abilities of the Labor Government to, not reform Australia, but administer it.

(Melbourne Herald).

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KEY: L-NCP = Liberal-National Country Parties; DLP = Democratic Labor Party; ALP = Australian Labor Party;

AP = Australia Party.

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